


In Your Dreams, You Die A Million Times

by a_xmasmurder



Category: Strike Back (TV)
Genre: Gen, I'M FIXING IT, John Porter Lives!, Season Two Episode One does NOT EXIST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_xmasmurder/pseuds/a_xmasmurder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I AM FIXING SEASON TWO EPISODE ONE.</p><p>For Roane, because It's a THING.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Dreams, You Die A Million Times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roane/gifts).



> Takes a part from Strike Back 2: Project Dawn. I do not own Strike Back, RA, or the part that I snitched.

He was bound to a chair, ropes biting into the skin of his wrists, pulling his shoulders back into the most uncomfortable position the bastards could manage. His broken shoulder screamed in protest, but he was grateful - the pain kept him awake, kept him aware. He breathed, ignoring the duller burn of broken ribs. His captors sure did a number on him, but what the fuck did he expect? This wasn’t the buggering Hilton. The treatment he was getting made him certain of one thing.

He wasn’t going to get rescued. England wasn’t coming for him. Section 20 wasn’t coming for him.

He was on his own, in the cold, and a dead man. Very. Fucking. Dead.

He should be feeling regret, fear, anger, but nope. Not his fucked up brain. The only emotion he was really feeling was a sick sense of relief. Soon, it would be over. It would be over, and he could rest. Go back to being nobody. No more assignments, no more bullets, no more pain. No more agony over whether or not his own daughter even knew he was still alive. No more wondering if she even cared. So, relief. Calming, that.

He swallowed around dust and sand, and blinked away sweat and blood. Wouldn’t be long, now. The camera was set up in front of him, and men were milling around, AKs and handguns out in the open, plain as fucking day to see. He tracked them with his eyes, watched the blank stares they returned to him. They didn’t give two flying shits about what they were doing. Terrorists never did. All that mattered to them was the end fucking game. They wanted MI6 to negotiate the release of their compatriots, and figured capturing one of their so called ‘agents’ would do that. Good luck with that, fuckers.

For the tenth time that hour, he grunted at them, “England does not negotiate with terrorists.”

The men only stared at him some more. A sharp slap to the back of his head had him seeing stars, and the possible leader of this ragtag group of shitheads came around and bent in front of him.

“We don’t care. They will acknowledge our demands and let our brothers go.” Heavily accented English.

“No, they bloody well won’t. You and I know this.”

“Eventually, they will. You will be of no use to us soon. You have one job. I expect you do it.” A heavy hand on his busted left shoulder left him gasping and wincing.

“Fuck you. I’ll bury your fucking corpse with a bloody PIG, you cunt!”

The flare of anger in the leader’s brown eyes was almost worth the agony of his collar bone snapping under the stock of an AK-47. He screamed, his brain overloaded with pain.

“You will keep your mouth shut until we tell you to speak, British dog!” The leader spat in his face and turned on his heel, snapping out words in Arabic that he couldn’t understand. Fuck, he was horrid with languages to begin with, and the Brain on Pain wouldn’t be able to parse the bullshit, anyway. He breathed out hard through his nose and scowled at the camera, at the little red light. After that, he let his mind wander, let himself zone out. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t have a death wish...well, yeah, he did, but he’d rather die out there, fighting, on his fucking feet...not like this. Never like this. Yeah, it was inevitable. And it was ridiculous, really.

He must have passed out for a bit, because he jerked awake to the sounds of excited arseholes running around. Maybe someone did come find him? No. No gunshots, no shouts of terror, no grenades. Nope. Still alone.

There was a man holding a length of cardboard with words on it. The words were in English. Oh, here we go. This is it. A jolt of adrenalin jumped through his veins, burning a bright path down his nerves and synapses. He was fully awake now. Of course, you want to be awake for your own fucking execution, right? His stomach fluttered in anticipation, even as his brain screamed at him to escape, to fight back, to do SOMETHING, for fuck’s sake don’t just sit here and accept it as your due you fucking CUNT! But what could he do? What could he do now?

The camera blinked on, the red light turning green. His overtrained instincts told him to try to escape, but the ones behind him shoved him back down in his chair. Someone barked a foreign word at him, one he knew.

_**Read!** _

Fuck, here we go…

“No effort has been made to free the Brothers being held by the American and British dogs…” Ah, fuck you, fucking… “You cowards. You make me fucking LAUGH!” Oh, they didn’t like that one bit, as one bastard barked at him again and the other slammed his rifle into his bad shoulder FUCK THAT HURT…

**_READ IT!_ **

He grunted in agony. “Instead, the blood of other martyrs has been spilled in a ridiculous attempt to rescue me - why don’t you just get on with it, you sad fucking _pricks_!”

Another butt to the shoulder, and now he was certain he was going to pass out from the pain, fucking hell it hurts, damn it fuck fuck fuck…He breathes through the pain and focuses. This was the most important part of the whole thing. The grand fucking finale. And damned if he wasn’t going to give the best performance he could. For Queen and fucking Country.

He hoped Layla was watching. No, he didn’t. But she would be. God, she would be. Bless her. He didn’t want her to see this. She was good people. Fucking…

“Latif must speak in the only language the West understands.”

His heart gives a great kick in his chest. He swallowed and stared hard at the camera in front of him as a sharp blade of sudden terror and realisation stabbed into him. Oh fuck. Fuck. This was it. The end. No more. Nothing more. People shifted around him - getting out of the path of the bullet and the blood. Fucking. Oh God. Oh my God. Fuck. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the fucker with a handgun come up to his head. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t finish. He couldn’t do it.

He had to.

Hopefully, Section 20 finds someone as good as he was.

He could hear the bastard shifting the safety off, readying for the shot.

Fuck.

“Blood.”

_**BANG.** _

  
  
  
  


“Hrngg fuckin' HELL!” He jerked awake, falling off the back seat of the Jeepney and into the footwell, where he got well and truly stuck, his shoulder caught beneath the jack. He lay there, panting, for a good five minutes or so. A shiver rocked through him as he fought his heart and his breath for control. Good God. Fuck. He swallowed around dust and sand in his throat, and reached into the front seat for his canteen of tepid water, and drained the whole thing in one go. Finally, he had enough control over his arms and legs to struggle back onto the seat. He slumped against the side of the door and blinked hard into the setting sun. That must have been what woke him up, because the whole Jeepney was now in the light, instead of the shade that the rocky outcrop afforded him earlier. He swiped at the sweat on his brow.

“Must have slept for a few hours.”

He looked around him. The barren landscape around him was awash in the golden light of the dying sun, hinting at the coolness of the night, but only just. He breathed in the hot air once, twice, trying to rid himself of the last vestiges of the nightmare that had him in its grasp. His heart still trip hammered, but at least it was manageable. He pushed away from the bench seat and crawled into the driver’s seat. High up in the sky, a lone hawk keened as it circled, waiting for prey coming out at dusk. He smiled.

“All alone up there, yeah? Join the club.” He started the engine, listening to it cough and argue and sputter to life, and shifted the ancient gearbox into drive. “Thousands of miles away from home, on the run. Almost out of provisions.” He grunted. “Gonna have to find a town soon.” He drove off into the setting sun, leaving behind the horrid promise that fate has worse plans for him than driving around in a beautiful country to avoid the CIA and whomever else wanted his fucking head.

They can wait. John Porter plans on living a little while longer.

 


End file.
